Beyond infrastructure and engines – the people of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway route
Look at the marvels on the route of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway – the grand stations, tunnels, cuttings, viaducts, embankments and more. We might take them for granted, but they’re right in front of us (or underneath us) as we travel. In some cases 200-year old infrastructure is still serving the purpose it was built for all those years ago. And, if we’re so inclined, we can seek out some of the engines, carriages and even goods wagons that used to run on the line. Some, like the 1838 locomotive Lion, might be confined to museums now; some might be running on heritage railways; and some have even been built afresh as working replicas, like the Science and Industry Museum’s recreation of the 1830 locomotive Planet.
All these things we can see, hear, smell and potentially touch – they’re physical and sensory, and have a tangible form. And yet … what about the intangible? What about the people who operated the railway in the past – what do we know of them? Most of them are long since gone – and with them, a vital element of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway’s social history. So how can we populate the route with people from the past, and find the men, women and children who kept the railways running? And how can we connect that past with our present? If we can do it, it has a real power to reengage communities with the railway, as we tread in the footsteps of those who’ve been before us. That’s all well in principle – but how might we actually find those past railway people?
The Peet family: a railway story, made in Liverpool
If you’d taken a train from Wavertree station in the early 1920s, you might have thought the buildings were kept well cleaned. If you’d been there at the right time you might even have seen the person responsible: Elizabeth Peet. She was one of around 55,000 women employed on the UK’s railways at the time. She worked for the London and North Western Railway (LNWR, the successor company to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway), as a station cleaner. This was very much following social expectations of the time about ‘appropriate’ employment for women. This is very much the end of the Peet family’s railway story – so how did Elizabeth end up working on the railway? To understand that, we have to look to her husband, John. He was another of the people who worked on the Liverpool and Manchester route.
Born in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, in 1873, John was the son of a joiner and a textile worker. By 1881, the Peet family (now totalling four children) had moved to Ashton-under-Lyne – presumably following employment. By 1891 all four children had followed in their mother’s footsteps and gone into the textile industry. By 1901 John had changed paths. He had joined the LNWR as a ‘platelayer’ – someone who maintained the railway tracks. For most of the railways’ existence, work was intensely manual – including making sure the tracks were well-laid, well-drained, and offered a smooth ride. Men – and, until the First World War, they were all men (see here for more on that!) – like John worked in gangs, walking up and down ‘their’ length of track on a regular basis to inspect it and keep it in pristine condition.
Family connections were important in John’s life story. He moved from his parents’ home in Ashton-under-Lyne to his cousin’s home at 50 Cecil Street, Wavertree. The cousin, William Martin, was also from Lincolnshire – and he worked on the railway, as a type of guard on goods trains. Had William helped secure John his job? This wouldn’t be at all surprising – family connections were (and are) very common within the rail industry.
Fast forward another 10 years to the next census, and we see that John has married and started a family. In 1904 he married Elizabeth Whitehead, and they had a daughter, Alice, in 1905 and a son, John, in 1907. They still lived in Wavertree, now at 39 Sunningdale Road; John still worked as a platelayer. Elizabeth had no occupation listed on the Census. She might possibly have undertaken some paid work that wasn’t recorded on the Census, and she definitely would have done unpaid, domestic labour. John joined the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (ASRS) trade union in August 1911 – and it was through this connection that we knew to look at John’s life, for reasons that will become apparent. Finally, John and Elizabeth had two more children – Jessica, born in 1911 and Harold, born in 1914.
The end of John Peet’s story
John appeared in the records of the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR – formed from the ASRS in 1913). Those records are part of the work done by the Railway Work, Life & Death project, which looks at accidents to British and Irish railway staff before 1939. The project is a collaboration between the University of Portsmouth, National Railway Museum and the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick, also working with The National Archives of the UK and the RMT Union (which itself was formed from the NUR in 1990). Over the last 10 years, small teams of volunteers have been transcribing records of railway staff accidents, which we’ve made freely available from the project website. So far we’ve built a database of over 115,000 people and accidents – and this is where John Peet featured.
Sadly, in 1919 the NUR had reason to help John’s family. The records show that he was killed at work on 3 September, having been knocked down by a train. As track workers were, at this time, typically expected to do their duties whilst trains were running on the lines, they were exposed to high levels of risk. Many permanent way staff were injured or killed as a result – and John was one of them. The NUR records relating to John’s death were what alerted us to have a look at his life – little knowing the story we’d uncover. The NUR supported its members or their dependents in a number of ways, including after an accident. This was necessary due to the large number of accidents on Britain’s railways for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1919 alone, for example, 377 railway workers died on the job, and a staggering 20,448 were injured. The statistics are clearly terrible – but each one of those represents a person, with friends, family and communities affected. Being able to see down to the individual level and put names to the figures is really important in understanding the impacts of railway workplace accidents.
Within days of John’s death, the NUR provided his widow, Elizabeth, with an payment of £5 (around £310 in 2026), to help cover immediate family costs. In the following months, the NUR helped to secure compensation from the LNWR, to the tune of £300 (about £18,500 in 2026). This was the maximum payout allowed under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. John had also chosen to pay in to the NUR’s Orphan Fund – and this meant that, until the children were 14, a weekly contribution would be made to help towards their maintenance. At the time of his death, three of his children were under 14; Elizabeth received given seven shillings and sixpence (approximately £23 in 2026) each week. Of course, as valuable as the financial support was, none of it would have lessened the emotional impact of a dead husband and father. The effects on Elizabeth and the children must have been truly devastating. Even worse, this was a story that played out in 376 other households in Britain in 1919 alone.
We know a little more about the accident from a contemporary newspaper account. The Liverpool Evening Express tells us that John was at work at Broad Green station. He needed to cross the tracks, so waited for one train to pass. Unfortunately as he crossed he was carrying a long pole, which was caught by a train coming from the other direction. This threw him into the path of the train that killed him.
And that brings us back round to Elizabeth, and how she came to work on the railway. The compensation she received wasn’t enough to live on, so she needed to find paid employment. Whilst the railway companies had a rather cavalier attitude to safety, they viewed themselves as ‘good’ employers, looking after staff and their families. This paternalistic ideal meant that they would often find work for staff who had suffered life-changing disabilities through their work – or for family members of staff who were killed. It looks very much like the LNWR found Elizabeth a job, to ‘make up’ for her husband’s death at work.
In 1921, then, we find Elizabeth still living in the family home at 39 Sunningdale Road in Wavertree. Her three youngest children were living with her. We don’t know how long she worked for the railway. In 1939 she and John, her youngest son, were still at the same address. The Peet’s family story, then, was uncovered because of three very brief mentions in the NUR’s records inside the Railway Work, Life & Death project. By piecing a range of records together we can see a picture which covers individual, local, occupational and national levels. It’s given us insight into women’s employment in the early 20th century, including on the railways, and how this was shaped by social conventions. It’s shown us some of the dangers of railway work, ideas about occupational identity and how trades unions played an important role, as well as how the railway companies saw themselves as paternalists. We can see some of the family stories, and where they fitted in their local communities. All of this has come from official sources – imagine if we could add the personal and family perspectives, too! All told, then, looking at individual railway workers like this gives us a better understanding of the people and the past in our areas.
Tracing the Liverpool and Manchester route’s railway workers
John and Elizabeth Peet are only two of the many thousands of people who have lived and worked along the Liverpool and Manchester route over the last 200 years. How might we find out about more of them? It’s certainly possible to dig speculatively for railway workers, using things like the census and birth, marriage and death records. Some railway staff records survive, too. The Railway Work, Life & Death project database provides a focused starting point, allowing us to pinpoint people with known connections to the area – through the accidents they had at work on the Liverpool and Manchester route. From that it’s possible to work outwards, as we have with John and Elizabeth Peet, and find out more about their wider lives.
Looking at the records in the project, we can see details for people across Liverpool, Manchester and Salford, but also Rainhill, Earlestown, Newton-le-Willows, Glazebury, Patricroft, Weaste … They give us an idea of the sheer range of roles needed to keep the railway running – and what the people were actually doing on the ground. For example, from Earlestown alone we have an engine driver, labourers, a ‘hooker-on’, a painter, signalmen, shunters, a blacksmith, porters, a capstanman, goods guards, an apprentice wagon builder, a permanent way inspector, and a signal linesman. Some of these roles are easily understandable – some of them much less so. Looking at what people’s jobs entailed can really help us understand their day-to-day lives in the past.
We can find people who are perhaps less traditionally represented in the collective understanding of railway history – but who have always been there. They might be women like Mrs H Hanner, a porter on the LNWR injured in 1919 in Manchester. Or it might be showing us people with (occupationally-caused) disabilities, like LNWR foreman WH Barber, who lost his left leg in an incident in Liverpool in 1916. We can see people from across the spectrum of ages – from 15-year olds to those in their late 60s. If we can find out more about all of these people, we will end up with a much richer tapestry of our pasts.
People, family & place
It would be excellent to connect past railway workers with descendants and with people living in the places linked to the route today. A nice example of how some research is being undertaken in the community like this, the Friends of Salford Cemeteries Trust are researching the lives of people interred in Salford’s cemeteries. This includes Weaste – given its proximity to the Liverpool and Manchester route, there are a number of railway workers buried there. Peter Kilvert, a Trustee of the Friends organisation, has written about the railway aspects of this.
We’ve already mentioned that so far as the Railway Work, Life & Death project is going, at the moment we’re reliant upon the formal documentation that the rail industry produced, and other forms of official sources, like the census. Sometimes, when working the descendants of those involved in accidents, we’ve heard the personal stories which really show the individuals. We would love to see more of that – including for the Liverpool and Manchester route.
As an example of this, we have the story of Rowland Winn. Contributed by Susan Fabbro, it’s a lovely example of how the personal stories within a family can really shape our understanding of the people and incident. It concerns a 1931 fatal accident at Kenyon Junction, between Newton-le-Willows and Glazebury. Being able to find similar for other railway workers on the Liverpool and Manchester route would really highlight the personal dimensions of railway work and railway staff accidents. This has the power to give voice to ordinary people and share their stories.
So – we’d end by reiterating the invitation to explore the Liverpool and Manchester route via its staff. One means of doing that is via the Railway Work, Life & Death project database and we’d encourage anyone interested to have a go at finding out more about someone local to them. This can really provide us with the detail about people who might otherwise be overlooked.
And next time you travel through Wavertree and Broad Green, think about John and Elizabeth Peet, and their lives: remember them.
Railway Work, Life & Death project: is a joint initiative between the University of Portsmouth, the National Railway Museum (NRM) and the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick (MRC). They are also working with other institutions including The National Archives of the UK (TNA) and the RMT Union. As part of the Big Digital Archive project going forward, Rocket: All Abaord hopes to work alongside the Railway Work, Life & Death Project to help explore, connect and share more stories about the people connected to the line and their lasting impact on communities along the route.
